Instead Lord Leighton had altered Blade's mind until he sensed and lived entirely in one of those parallel dimensions-a barbaric land called Alb. Blade was a superb mental and physical specimen, so he had survived in Alb long enough for Lord Leighton to figure out what had happened and bring him back to England. It had also helped that Blade was a top agent for the secret intelligence agency MI6. That made him very much a professional survivor type.

It didn't require much thinking for people to realize how valuable the ability to travel among dimensions might be for England. It didn't require much argument to persuade the Prime Minister to underwrite Project Dimension X from the secret funds.

But it did require Richard Blade to keep his sudden and mysterious comings and goings secret from the woman he loved. The Official Secrets Act dropped down between him and Zoe like an armored wall.

Eventually she had decided she wanted a husband who would stay close at hand and said good-bye. Blade went off to a land called Tharn, and a few months later Zoe married Reginald Smythe-Evans, the only son and heir of some large and wealthy figure in the city's financial circles.

Blade had seen her get married. In fact, he had seen the wedding nearly disrupted by an actor pretending to be him making a drunken ass of himself. That had been part of a trick to throw the Russians off the scent of Project Dimension X. Poor Zoe couldn't know that, of course.

But apparently she had forgiven the wedding and remembered other things. Thus the request that he stand as godfather to her son.

There was Zoe now, coming up the church aisle with the nurse behind her, carrying young Edward. She walked up to her husband and took one tweed-covered arm, but her eyes were on Blade and her smile was for him. The eyes were as bright as ever, and the smile as warm. She hadn't changed or aged much, in spite of two children and marriage to Reginald. Blade didn't imagine that Reginald was complaining, either. Over the years they would no doubt make a marriage as good as most and better than a good many.